An unfortunate time travel.

I’ve saved my grandfather’s 16mm films, where a large part of our family history is preserved. Since no one owns a projector anymore, I digitised about eight hours of material. Only a handful of people still alive have ever seen the films before, so it was with a sense of reverence that I stayed up one night watching through it all.

The earliest clip shows my great-grandfather’s 80th birthday. Carefree guests with cocktails under the lime trees, lanterns, cigarettes, and brandy in the black-and-white summer evening. Someone’s little child runs past in a white cotton dress. The next clip is from the same year but shows a group having coffee outdoors on a sunny summer day. Someone else must have been operating the camera because I see my grandfather sitting at one end of the table, around 30 years old. Suddenly, the camera passes the other side of the table, and there sits a person I immediately recognise. The scene is brief, but when I freeze the frame, there is no doubt. The same colours, the same hair, shoulders, posture, nose, and smile. It’s me sitting there.

The next day, I excitedly show the clip to my wife, who agrees that it undeniably looks like me.

-Well, it must be a relative, she reasons logically.

-With genes that produce exact clones?

-Yes, there are people with strong genes.

-But it doesn’t add up, I reply and call my 80-year-old uncle. I ask if he knows who it is in the film.

-It looks like you, but I don’t know who it is, he replies, which rules out the possibility of a close relative.

-Your grandmother had an affair with him, my wife insensitively suggests that evening.

-I don’t want you trash talking my grandmother.

-It’s the only explanation. He’s your biological grandfather, and when your mum gave birth to you - you became his exact copy. That must be it, she concludes confidently.

-Not at all, I reply irritably. It could be me who travelled back in time when I was around 30 and accidentally got caught on camera.

-How?

-I don’t have all the answers! There are several theoretical physicists who argue that it’s possible. I might have stumbled into a wormhole and travelled back in time.

-Well, you’d remember that, wouldn’t you?

-Not necessarily. Travelling close to the speed of light can have strange effects on the brain.

-So, you went back in time and slept with your own grandmother, is that what you’re saying?

At this point, I chose to end the conversation. It was too much to process. Could I be my own grandfather?